Keeping Fantasy Fresh

When I pick up a fantasy book at the bookstore or the library, I’m expecting two things: first, a recognizable set of concepts, tropes and ideas that together make a “fantasy;” and second, a new, fresh, exciting take on those archetypes and clichés that I already love.

At first glance, this might seem like the most irreconcilable pair of requirements ever demanded: the completely expected, and the completely unexpected. But in fact, I think that’s what we look for in all art and entertainment, and fantasy – whether it be fiction, cinema, or an MMORPG – is no exception.

But how do we reconcile these two demands? The first criterion is something that’s subject to never-ending debate: what, exactly, is “fantasy?” Taking a walk through the bookshelves, fantasy usually looks like anything with a fearsome dragon or a handsome rogue on the cover. Fantasy is obviously deeper than this, and I think that if you consider yourself a reader of fantasy, you’re going to know when you pick up your next book if it’s a fantasy to you. Whether it’s a binding-busting epic, modern urban fantasy, the “new weird” or some long-lost tome of surrealism, the fantasy reader smells out his or her favourite brand of the genre and stakes a claim to it. If it doesn’t meet the reader’s expectations for fantasy, it’s not a fantasy to them – whatever the rest of the world might think.

The second demand, however, is a much more nebulous affair. Judging by all those dagger-wielding ladykillers and flame-belching serpents it would be easy to adopt the opinion that the vast majority of fantasy offers nothing truly new to readers. The sheer proliferation of serials, cycles and trilogies demonstrates to what degree fantasy readers are willing to accept just more of the same. But considering that we haven’t yet decided on a definition of fantasy, how can we as readers demand something new out of it – and how, as writers, can we provide it?

There is, without doubt, a demand for novelty that does not extend to the fundamentals of either genre or writing style; a demand for new stories, but not new ideas or new voices. This is fundamentally what drives the fantasy book industry from year to year; but it is not what drives the fantasy book industry from decade to decade. The voices and stories that stand out tend to endure beyond their commercial time period. Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast series and Michael Moorcock’s Elric stories feel as fresh to me today – in voice, character, and story – as they must have to readers in the middle part of the twentieth century. Conversely, The Lord of the Rings, the Shannara series, and even the Wheel of Time offer me little reread value, and are even now being displaced by newer series like the Mistborn trilogy and The Malazan Book of the Fallen – despite the fact that all of these books are incredibly popular and successful examples of what is indisputably “fantasy.” Although you may not agree with my tastes, everyone must decide at some point what it is to for fantasy to be timely, and what it is for fantasy to be timeless.

It is obvious, then, that the second criterion in our demand for good fantasy books is heavily reliant on how we decide on the first: what is fantasy? What are the specific elements of fantasy “faith” that bring us back: is there an orthodoxy, staples of the genre that must be followed and freshened only by elements of presentation and modern trends; or is good fantasy recurrent heresy?

In this article series, I’ll look at the elements that I believe characterize all fantasy, and in so doing try to arrive at an idea of what a good fantasy writer ought to do in order to create a good book for fantasy readers.

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